Queens
by not dragon
Summary: Dean and Sam discover that Heaven and Hell aren't the only players.


Dean Winchester ran a hand through his hair and over his face. He was exhausted, sated and watching the woman who just wrecked his bed sliding back into her long black dress. The thing had to be silk given the way it clung and shifted and shimmered across her translucent skin.

"Leavin'?"

She turned to smile at him as she pulled her thick black hair into an elegant up 'do and pinned it into place with a couple of obsidian sticks. "Of course, child. We are done here," she told him in that ripe tone that trickled electricity down his spine.

"Why? I mean ..."

She perched on the side of the bed. Somehow she seemed taller when they met. "What we have done is meet that it is done, Dean Winchester." Her eyes seemed wholly black as she leaned over to kiss his forehead, leaving a cold imprint on his sweaty skin. They were feline, blue and slit pupil led like a Siamese cat's as she straightened and stood.

His tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth, but he untangled it to ask her name, fear beginning to replace the feeling of satisfaction she had left. She turned in the door with a smile. "Thee could not pronounce the whole of it, sweet child." Child again. How had he not noticed that before? "Thee may call me Mab, as did many of thy forebears. We shall meet again, Hunter of the Dark Side. Until then, sleep thee well." She blew him a kiss and left with a rich rustle of fabric.

Mab. Where had he heard that name before? He awoke to Sam returning to the room.

Sam took in the disarray of Dean's bed and shook his head. "Have a good time while I was out?"

"Don't get sarky with me, Sammie."

"Don't call me Sammie."

Dean grinned back at his brother as he headed for the shower. Coming back with a towel wrapped around his hips and searching for his clothing, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the chest of drawers. Leaning in close, he frowned at the faint lip print on his forehead. "Hey, Sam. D'you see this?" He pointed at the mark.

The frown on Sam's face answered him before the nod did. Sam moved to take a closer look. You didn't wash her lipstick off?" But the brush of a fingertip across the mark answered that. Whatever it was, it wasn't makeup. "Dean ..."

"She said her name was Mab."

"Mab!? Dean! I mean, Mab? Really?"

Dean shot his brother a long suffering look. "Who's Mab?" Damn, here he was having fun and a demon had to enter the picture. He took a quick look to make sure he was still whole. Yep, still there. He really was going to have to be more careful. "OK. So what kind of demon is Mab? A succubus or something?" The look on Sam's face was not reassuring.

"Unless some demon has borrowed the name, no. Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, in some legends Queen of the Sidhe, the Fey folk. Some think the name is a shortening of the collection of myths that comprise the Mabinogion … "

"Whoa! Slow down. The Mabi- what?"

"Collection of Welsh mythic tales. Mab is the Queen of the ..."

"Fairies? Are you tellin' me I slept with a fairy?"

Sam could no longer quell his laughter. "Fey. The Sidhe are the major players, look human but more beautiful. Sometime have cat's eyes. Descriptions vary. What did she say?"

"She kept callin' me 'child' and she said we'd meet again. Blue black hair, dark eyes, completely blacked out and then went really, really blue... like a Siamese cat … Fuck!"

Sam's eyebrows rose and Dean could see some sort of comment just hovering there to be made, but the younger Winchester refrained, although he did smirk a bit. "Well, you haven't lost any time. Which seems to be one of the side effects of … dallying with the Fey." Sam chuckled.

They dropped the discussion as the lady seemed only intent on amusing herself with a mortal's full cooperation. It wasn't until they mentioned the incident to Bobby that the possibility of a downside to the situation arose.

"Tell me you didn't offer her anything or ask anything of her." Bobby's worry was palpable. The boys exchanged a look. What the hell?

"No," Dean assured him, but the interlude was hazy now. "We … we had sex. That was it."

Bobby relaxed. "Good. You don't want to bargain with those things," he told them seriously. "No good has ever come of a bargain with the Sidhe."

"It hasn't?" Sam was curious. "Why not?"

"Because they are twisted, soulless things. They're worse than demons."

"Worse?" Dean looked worried. "What can be worse than a demon?"

"The Fey. They're soulless because they're immortal. They live in a … some sort of alternate dimension, I guess. And they live to bargain. Problem is, much like the djinn, you have to be very very specific and a bargain is anything they say it is. If you eat or drink when offered it in their place, you're bound to the one who gave it to you and their demands can be horrendous. They play with mortals, not to devour their souls, but just to play. Like a cat with a mouse."

"Oh, that makes me feel just wonderful. Any idea what the hell she wanted?"

Bobby regarded him seriously for a moment and then grinned. "Apparently she was interested in a roll in the hay. For which you should thank your lucky stars."

Sam was on his own, Dean laid to rest a month ago, when he returned to his hotel room, weary from the day of working out just what was going on and how to solve the problem. He opened the door, half expectant, still not entirely "knowing" that his brother would not be there to talk things over with. His mouth dropped open at the slender blonde lying on the bed, sheets tossed aside, wide eyes fixed on him as he faltered in the doorway.

"Enter." Honeyed voice of command issued forth and he obeyed, letting the door close behind him.

"I … "

She looked him over critically, curiously. "Thee are not the one called Dean."

"No," he half stammered. "I … Who are you?" He looked around the room desperately, searching for he knew not what, but on edge. His gaze fell on her again as she sat up. Sun kissed hair tumbled in lazy tendrils around her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes were new leaf green, set slightly aslant in her narrow face; gilded lips stretched in a smile that did nothing to warm those eyes.

She moved off the bed, padding across the threadbare carpet to him, encircling him with her slender arms. Warmth seeped into him, into his frozen soul as her mouth met his, teasing, tantalizing and searching all at once. He was hard under her touch, in desperate need for the solace she could bring him, still, he pulled back and stared into her eyes on a level with his own.

"Who are you?" he asked again.

A gay laugh greeted the question. "I am here, that is all that should concern thee, youth." Her lips met his again, insistent, demanding. Tongues tangled in a delicious dance as she drew him toward the bed.

Still he pulled back, knowing that he was in danger somehow. This was not a demon, that much he knew. "Thrice I ask and done, who are you?"

Anger flitted across her pale face. "Thee know more than thy dolt of a brother. Thrice asked and must be answered. I am Titania, Summer's Queen." With that, she threw him onto the bed and straddled him, ripping away his clothing as though it was made of paper. "Thee are well formed and desirable, mortal. Will thee have me?"

Nothing if not direct when they wanted to be, Sam held very still, ignoring the demands of his body to put her to good use and enjoy what she offered. "Why?"

"Why? What foolishness is this? Thee are the youngest Winchester, full of powers, full of darkness and light. To couple with thee … well, there may be much to gain from thee, youngling."

"Gain … And what do you offer me?" Sam's voice was hard. The ache in his heart flamed suddenly. Bargains. The Fey were powerful and not bound by the sides of the battle he fought. Could she … Could she … "What do you offer me?" he grated out again, holding her away from him so he could try to think.

"What do thee want, mortal?" Her scorn was nearly physical.

"My brother. I want my brother back."

Titania blinked at the man beneath her. She could feel his heat, his desire, his nearly overwhelming need to sate himself on her. Yet he held. "Thy brother is in Hell."

"So?"

She sat up, grinding slightly against his hardness. "Thy brother is a game piece between powers that exceed mine own." Why was she being honest with him? "I could bring thee a seeming of him, but I cannot release him from the binding of the demons." She leaned down and traced a kiss along his sad mouth. Such suffering inflicted because of ties she could not understand. The wild eyes regarded him, brows pulling together in a frown. "I can offer other things," she conceded. Not the one thing he wanted, but something lesser that would allow him to succumb to her.

For a long moment he lay looking up at her. The flame of hope sank down again to the smoldering embers he kept banked in his heart. "No. Nothing. This is enough." He pulled her down to him, losing himself for a while in her warmth. Vaguely he wondered if this was what Dean and Mab had shared, for this was a sharing, deep and satisfying; wholly without heart.

The Summer Queen arose from the bed, leaving Sam relaxed, asleep. A frown marred her forehead as she shimmered into a pale gold gown; flowers and leaves weaving into her tangled tresses before she left him, pressing a hand to her belly and feeling the new life springing there. As Mab had her dark daughter, so Titania would have a gilded son. They owed the Winchester men for the new lives forming in their land. With a smile, she blew him a kiss and was gone.


End file.
